Posts Tagged ‘self-limiting beliefs’

By Jim Whitt There’s a monument in Liberal, Kan. that reminds me of how different the world looked like 30 years ago. It’s easy to miss because it lies flat on the ground like a stone marking a grave in a cemetery. And in a sense, that’s what it is. It’s a concrete slab upon which once stood a Purina feed mill. I used to ship feed out of that plant when I was in sales with Purina. When I left the company in 1987 that mill was running 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. It was idle… Read More

By Sondra Whitt In a workshop I facilitated recently, one participant was struggling to keep a positive attitude at work while she was surrounded by overwhelming negativity. While there were several helpful suggestions offered by different participants, she finally came to the conclusion that her best solution was to deliberately practice positive self-talk. She realized that she had no control over the situation — only over herself, her attitude and perspective. If she could change the way she saw the people and situation, she could change her attitude, outlook, be less stressed, happier and more productive. She concluded that… Read More

By Jim Whitt If you were going to build the largest hotel in North America, where would you build it? The logical thing to do would be to build it in one of the continent’s largest metropolitan areas. Maybe New York, Las Vegas, Los Angeles or Florida. That would make sense, wouldn’t it? Find out where the most people need overnight accommodations and build a hotel big enough to hold them. But William Cornelius Van Horne didn’t choose New York, Los Angeles or Florida for the largest hotel in North America — he chose Banff. Banff? Yes, Banff — Banff,… Read More

By Jim Whitt This is an excerpt from Chapter 6 of The Transformational Power of Purpose: Finding & Fulfilling Your Purpose in Life: I was in a restaurant on Fisherman’s Wharf overlooking San Francisco Bay. A radiant sunset framed a silhouette of the Golden Gate Bridge to my left and to my right I could see Alcatraz, the former island prison which once housed such infamous criminals as Al Capone and Machine Gun Kelly. How ironic. Here were two famous landmarks that symbolized both freedom and captivity. The Golden Gate Strait through which so many freedom-seeking immigrants had passed, leads… Read More

By Jim Whitt This is an excerpt from Chapter 6 of The Transformational Power of Purpose: Finding & Fulfilling Your Purpose in Life: He was right. They were there. You couldn’t see them with the naked eye but magnified ten times you could see them — tiny flaws. I was examining a diamond under a loop — the small magnifying glass that jewelers use to examine gems. Looking at the ring from the counter, you would never know the diamonds were anything but perfect. The jeweler explained how the Gemological Institute of America grades diamonds. In addition to a scale… Read More

By Jim Whitt This is an excerpt from Chapter 5 of The Transformational Power of Purpose: Finding & Fulfilling Your Purpose in Life: As a young actor, Michael Caine was struggling to make a living. One day while in the waiting room of a casting agency, the owner asked him for his coat size and inseam length. Caine told him that he wore a size 40 jacket and his inseam measured 32 inches. The casting agent waved him into his office and told him he would be playing a policeman in a small film the next day. He was selected… Read More

By Jim Whitt As a young salesman with the Ralston Purina Company I pulled into a drive leading to a farmhouse in the Oklahoma panhandle. I was new to the territory and making a cold call. After parking my car I walked up to the porch and rapped on the front door. No response. Not to be deterred I walked around the house and knocked on the back door. Again, no one greeted me. It was then I saw something that made my blood run cold. It was a sign with three of the most terrifying words known to the… Read More

By Jim Whitt Years ago I attended a writer’s conference where the attendees consisted of people who wanted to be writers and a few people like me who had gotten their feet wet but weren’t quite swimming in the sea of publishing. The conference speakers were those who had already attained varying levels of success as writers. Attendees could sign up for a one-on-one coaching session with one of the speakers. I had been publishing a weekly faxletter for a couple of years and had an idea my articles could be turned into a book. In my coaching session I… Read More

By Jim Whitt A friend sent me an article entitled In a Downturn, Provoke Your Customers* in which the authors write about provocation-based selling. Being a professional provoker, I found the principles described in provocation-based selling to be congruent with my approach as a consultant and speaker. One of the things I really like about the provocation-based selling approach is that it challenges the prevailing point of view as opposed to aligning with the prevailing point of view. You can sell a lot of stuff to people using the prevailing point of view because it’s familiar to them. But you’re… Read More

By Kay Caldwell Do you ever feel like you limit yourself? Do you have your life in a nice, neat little box that you dust off every now and then? Have you ever felt like you are in someone else’s territory? I read once “it’s not trespassing if the boundaries you cross are your own.” If you stop and think about you, and we rarely do, you have probably set boundaries in your life without realizing it. We all tend to set these boundaries based on life experiences. Let’s think about a new way of handling things.